I could see Marv gesticulating wildly, gesturing with his hands, delivering a verbal tirade that was almost audible even over the thumping of the music. Suddenly, Marv turned to the front desk agent and spit at him, and then turned back to his man friend and slapped him across the face, an act met with a collective “Ooooooohhhh!” from the crowd of onlookers eager for drama. Then Marv stormed out of the ballroom in a huff.
“Well that was fun,” Jay commented. “Fight number one is done. How many more will we have before the night is over?” he pondered aloud.
“I’m sure I’ll be finding out shortly when the calls from upset guests angry about the noise start coming in,” I answered.
“And I’ll be finding out on Monday morning when I read your M.O.D. report,” Jay answered with a grin. “And with that, I’m heading home to sleep in my big bed alone and without fear of getting slapped, spit on or whatever else.”
“Lucky bastard,” I grinned.
“You know you love the drama here,” he nudged me with an elbow as he rose from his chair.
Kristen and I held on for about another hour, finishing off the rest of the food as I tried to fill her in on the various couplings I’d observed before her arrival.
At a little after eleven, my M.O.D. phone vibrated against my waist from where it was positioned on my belt.
“Uh oh,” I called to Kristen over the din of the music and the alcohol-buoyed swell of the sea of voices below. “Looks like duty calls,” I held my phone up for her to see the illuminated screen that flashed an incoming call from the hotel’s phone operators who sat in the quiet seclusion of the communication department a floor above us.
“Better get to it,” she nodded. “I should be going anyway. I still have Christmas presents to wrap.”
We bid each other a quick goodnight and I moved to the balcony’s rear stairway where I could hear slightly better. “This is Robert, go ahead,” I answered my phone.
The nasal-pitched tone of one of our operator’s came through, “Robert, this is Brenda in communications. The guest in room 17-271 is reporting a disturbance outside their room.”
“Did you call security?” I asked as my standard follow-up for this type of issue.
“Yes I did,” Brenda paused a moment, “but the guest says it’s two security guards arguing that’s causing the disturbance.
“Oh lord,” I sighed to myself. “I’ll take care of it,” I told Brenda.
“Thank you. I’ll let the guest know,” Brenda said, sounding relieved.
I left the party as quietly as I’d come, no one taking notice as I slid, shadow-like through the throngs of inebriated employees to the back of house area where the service elevators awaited. I rode up to the 17th floor where I could hear yelling the minute I stepped off the elevator and onto the back landing. Moving my way around several room service “hot boxes” packed with room service trays full of dirty dishes and leftovers waiting to be taken downstairs for cleaning, I made my way out into the guest corridor. Following the sounds of irate shouting, I quickly discovered Goran and Sebastian – two of our newly hired security guards who had recently emigrated from Serbia.
“Guys, guys,” I said in a hushed tone, pushing my hands down flat toward the floor to indicate they needed to lower their voices. “Keep it down. Now what’s going on here?”
They both turned to look at me, appearing surprised at my arrival.
I looked at my watch. “It’s eleven forty-five; people are trying to sleep.”
They both started jabbering at me loudly in a combination of broken English and what I took to be Serbian.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, putting my hands up in front of me, “just hold on a second. One at a time.” I knew Goran slightly better, so after leading them away from the guest room that had reported the disturbance, I asked him to start explaining what was happening.
“Okay,” he said in heavily eastern European accented English, “Seb called me down in security office to see if room 17-270 occupied. I tell him no. He say television on, door open. He say he turn off, check rest of floor, come back, television back on but door is closed. He call me again…ask if I sure room empty. I say yes. He get mad, say I mess with him. I say no, I no mess with him, maybe he messed in head. He say, maybe I messed in head. I mad now, so I come up, show him no one in room. But when I come up, he not here, still I find room closed but with television on. I turn off, close door, go look for him. I no find. When I come back, door still closed but television on. Then Seb come. I know is him mess with me now. But he say no, room haunted, we argue, then you come.”
I exhaled heavily. “That’s it?” I asked in exasperation.
Now they were both looking at me like I was the one who didn’t understand.
“But 17-270 haunted!” said Sebastian, wide-eyed and pointing back down the hall.
“Seb,” I tried to sooth him, “it’s not haunted. It’s probably just a glitch in the television. I’ll have property operations take a look at it in the morning.
“No, is ghost,” Seb insisted. “I get feeling up here on this floor…always this floor…is ghosts here.”
“There are no ghosts,” I said.
“Is what I told him,” Goran nodded. “No ghosts…see?” he prodded his co-worker.
“Are ghosts!” Seb shook his head, insistent in his conviction that ethereal guests were apparently occupying the room. “You stay up here by self…you see,” he nodded. “Strange things happen by 17-270.”
My M.O.D. phone vibrated again, indicating that another issue had cropped up.
“Either way guys, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we have to stay quiet when we’re up here on guest floors. We save these types of conversations for the breakroom or when you’re down in the security office. Okay?” I searched their eyes for comprehension of what I was telling them.
They both nodded.
I looked at my phone. It was the front desk this time. “Got to go,” I told the men. “This is Robert, go ahead,” I answered my phone as I walked to the back landing and hit the service elevator “down” button.
“Robert, this is Lashanda at the front desk. We have a situation with one of the room attendants here.”
“I’m on my way down right now,” I told her.
“Copy that,” she answered, hanging up.
Two minutes later, I was back downstairs. I could see a tall woman with dark hair, fair skin, and wearing a skintight black mini-dress and four-inch heels standing alone at the front desk.
Lashanda emerged from the back office as I approached and we met at the far end of the registration desk, away from the waiting guest.
“Lashanda,” I said in a quiet voice, “I thought you said there was a room attendant down here.”
Lashanda rolled her eyes toward the leggy brunette. “Right there,” she muttered. “Been giving me attitude. Said she booked an employee room for the night, but I don’t show her anywhere in the system. She was getting all huffy puffy and wouldn’t listen. She’s drunker than a skunk too.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said.
“If you don’t, I’m gonna,” Lashanda said, starting to roll up her shirt sleeves.
“Don’t sweat it,” I smiled at her. “Go take a breather.”
Working at the front desk could be stressful. Most guests with a problem typically made it known at the front desk, and our staff members got all sorts of stuff dumped on them all day, and night, long. So I tried to relieve some of that pressure whenever I could. Our staff was motivated, hard-working, and well-trained, but sometimes I felt they were underpaid for the amount of crap they had to shovel from non-sympathetic guests, or in this case, other employees.
I walked over to the room attendant who tonight looked more like a runway model. In her heels, she stood a good inch taller than me, and upon my greeting of “Hi, I’m Robert, the manager on…” she wheeled upon me, her eyes fierce.”
“You the manager?” she said in a thick Russian accent.
<
br /> “Manager on duty, Robert Haze,” I offered a hand, but she ignored it.
“I’m to have room tonight, but girl say no room for me. I tell her, yes, room. But she still say no.” She was speaking rapid fire. “I tell her, big housekeeping lady, Ms. Marshall, she say she book for me reservation, but front desk girl say she no see.”
“Just calm down,” I tried to sooth her. I could smell the alcohol on her breath.
“You no tell me calm down. She tell me calm down too,” she pointed toward the front desk where Lashanda had been trying to assist her. “I say no. I say I need room. I tired. I go sleep, then I calm. She say…”
I turned and began to walk away.
“Hey…where you go?” the room attendant called after me.
“Well, I was going to escort you to your room if you’d permit me to do so,” I paused and turned back around to face her.
She looked at me confused.
“Would you care to join me?”
“Da…yes,” she shook her head and frowned, catching her homeland faux pas.
Having dealt with these types of situations so many times before, I knew it was pointless to stand at the front desk arguing or listening to her berate me. She wanted a room, she was entitled to a room (at least for tonight’s party), and I could provide her with a room. Problem solved. I didn’t see a need for her to stand around complaining loud enough for hotel guests to overhear. In the morning, she’d sober up, probably have forgotten all about the evening’s events, and still have a job – something she might not have for long if I let her continue to vent.
She moved toward me, swaying unsteadily, one ankle buckling to the side as her four-inch heel tipped awkwardly. I extended an arm to help steady her. She took it and allowed me to guide her over to the guest elevators.
“The guest elevators?” she questioned uncertainly. “Are we not to use service elevators?”
“It’s perfectly fine, young lady,” I answered, smiling at her. “Tonight, you are a guest,” I explained as we waited arm in arm.
Inside the elevator, I tried again. “So I’m Robert, but I don’t know your name.”
“Cecilia,” she said, her countenance serious. “But people call me Cece,” she gave me a nervous, almost imperceptible smile. It was a beautiful smile from lips that were as shapely as the body they were attached to.
“Where are you from, Cece?”
“Lithuania,” she said, her answers short, concise.
“Never been there,” I half joked. “Is it nice?”
“Beautiful.”
“How long have you worked at the hotel?”
“Two months.”
“You like it?”
“Is okay.”
Yep, a regular Chatty Cathy.
The elevator door dinged our arrival and slid open silently. I guided the fair maiden down the hallway to her room where I opened the door to 17-270 for her with my manager’s floor master key.
She turned around to face me. “You care to share room?” she moved up close and put a hand on my chest.
“Thank you, no,” I respectfully declined the highly inappropriate offer.
While the body was certainly willing, the mind, as well my knowledge regarding the booze-soaked brain of the lovely young lady making the invitation, was saying no.
She looked disappointed, but not overly so. “Why television on?” she suddenly asked, looking behind her to notice the faint illumination coming from the bedroom television.
“Got me,” I shrugged, giving her a big smile and a nod. “Have a nice evening and sleep tight.”
And with that, I beat a hasty retreat, leaving the leggy Lithuanian with the apparent television-watching ghost of 17-270.
Upon my return to the front desk, I had Lashanda formally book “Cece” into her room before I was hit with several more calls.
The first such call involved an apparent lovers’ quarrel between two hotel employees and that I managed to diffuse after several minutes by giving each of them their own individual room. The second call was again related to a spat between lovers, this time it was Marvin Garish and his new man friend.
Unfortunately, Marv’s boy toy had already departed, having had enough of Marv’s emotional flip-flopping, and leaving me to act as the shoulder on which Marv could cry. After five minutes of his teary-eyed outpouring about how much he loved this new man in his life and how he just didn’t see how he could go on without him, I was saved by another call regarding an employee party raging up on the 21st floor. I used the excuse to break away from Marv’s gushing as he clung to my arm, trying to pull me back for more commiserating.
“Please stay,” he sobbed. “You’re such a good listener. I could use a man like you right now,” he suddenly perked up, eyeballing me hungrily.
I didn’t stick around to find out what Marv meant by “use” a man like me.
“Sorry Marv, duty calls,” I said, waggling my M.O.D. phone before him and hurrying off down the hallway.
By around 2:00 a.m., I had quelled the last of the employee after-parties, and by 2:30, it looked as though things were quieting down around the hotel. Therefore, I headed down to my office, and typed up my M.O.D. report for the evening.
By three o’clock, I’d collapsed into the billowy king-sized bed in my hotel-room home, content with the knowledge of a job well done and another Lanigan holiday party in the books.
CHAPTER FOUR
To: [email protected]
Subject: 12/25 MOD Report
THE LANIGAN HOTEL
CHICAGO, IL
MANAGER ON DUTY REPORT
Sunday, December 25th
Weather: 24/15 - Overcast
Occupancy: 15%
Arrivals: 137
Departures: 449
Event Resume:
No Events
Merry Christmas!
***
Christmas morning broke cold, gray, and gloomy – just the way I like it in Chicago. Days like this made me feel as though there wasn’t a thing I was missing outside and therefore less guilty about hiding away inside the hotel. I knew that a swift jog along the lakefront or a brisk walk around the currently abandoned-looking city streets would do the body good; but it was Christmas I reasoned, no reason to overexert myself. And as I stared out my half-frosted bedroom window, watching the wind whip newspapers and other debris down Monroe Street 24 stories below, I inadvertently shivered at the thought.
I gave a good stretch, feeling my back pop in the process, yawned, walked over to put on the four-cup coffee maker in my suite’s little kitchenette, and headed for the shower.
A toasty 23 minutes later, I was showered, shaved, dried, dressed, and ready for the day. The only change-up for the holiday to my standard wardrobe was the addition of a Santa and reindeer-adorned tie tucked beneath my navy blue suit.
Taking my mug of steaming hot coffee along with me, I rode the service elevator down to the street level where I got a couple pastries from Vitantonio’s Café, the only eatery in the hotel open for business on Christmas morning. From there, I took the escalator up to the lobby – currently devoid of people – made my way around our monstrous 35-foot Christmas tree, its branches adorned with softball-sized ornaments, its base sprinkled with television-sized faux packages, and walked passed the front desk. A lone guest service agent stood there with a bored look on her face. She stared forlornly at her computer on this lonely Christmas morning. Her name was Hiatt. She was a 20-year-old college student from Saudi Arabia. She looked up as I passed.
“Merry Christmas,” she smiled.
“And a Merry Christmas to you,” I nodded back.
I likened the Lanigan to a profitable Midwestern version of the United Nations where people came to stay. We had employees from 39 states and 52 different countries employed at the hotel, so when it came to catering to the needs of the world’s guests, it truly was an international effort. And somehow, unlike the world in which we lived, we all managed to get along re
asonably well. Sure, there were always those little inter and sometimes intra-department staff tiffs and rivalries, but all things considered, our hotel functioned as any well-oiled machine should. This was largely due to the fact that we toiled under the golden rule of management. We treated each other, from line-level staff member to department head, housekeeping department to finance, as we ourselves would want to be treated. It was a rule of my creation, and one that Tom had quickly seen the merits in and therefore adopted and charged me with implementing.
I punched a code into the door keypad allowing me access to the back office. When you live at your workplace, and you don’t have any close family, sometimes it’s hard to let go of your work; it becomes a sort of hobby – as it had in my case. I found that using work as a way to stay busy often helped to waylay some of the loneliness that could accompany the more family-oriented holidays.
In the hallway outside my office door were two humongous boxes, one that stood as tall as me and another that was just as big but turned on its side. I’d had them special delivered for today so I could get them ready for Jay’s arrival Monday morning.
“Good, good,” I grinned and nodded as I saw them.
Skirting my way around the boxes, I sat down at my desk. After a long sip of my quickly cooling coffee, I turned on my computer and pulled up the “View Totals” screen purely out of habit. With the occupancy the way it was today, and hardly any arrivals, there was little reason to check. I moved the calendar on the screen forward by several days to New Year’s Eve. We’d picked up about 50 reservations since yesterday and were now close to 90 percent occupancy for the night. I made a note to have a few more desk agents added to the schedule just to be on the safe side and then sent an email to Marian in housekeeping to ensure that we had enough night cleaners to keep up with what I knew would be a hectic evening, copying John Rodgers, our housekeeping night manager, on the message.
The Case of the Linen Pressed Guest (The M.O.D. Files Book 2) Page 4